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Fifteen years ago, the state of California created a license for medical marijuana patients to legally consume, cultivate, possess or transport medical marijuana within the state. The card offered medical marijuana patients a tangible form of identification, further legitimizing California’s 1996 Compassionate Use Act, which established California as the first state to legalize medical marijuana.…

As both recreational and medical cannabis legalization continues to progress across the country, each state is tasked with developing regulatory requirements to ensure that customers and patients receive clean cannabis for consumption. This requires cannabis to undergo laboratory testing that analyzes the presence of microbial impurities including yeast and mold. Some states, such as Colorado,…

When Larry Krasner was elected as Philadelphia’s District Attorney last year, people began getting their hopes up. The criminal defense lawyer was known for aligning himself with activists and taking on civil rights cases, some for free when the client couldn’t afford to pay for his services. For Philadelphia, it looked like Krasner was primed…

For the ‘tough-on-crime Attorney General, last Wednesday was spent penning a frustrated letter to the Senate demanding that they stop trying to set dangerous drug dealers free. The letter, addressed to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), referenced a proposed bill known as the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act which aims to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for…

The movement for marijuana legalization in Great Britain might be picking up momentum, as the UK Parliament will debate a limited legalization bill on Feb. 23 on the future of marijuana legalization. Among western European nations, the UK parliament is perhaps most strident in its view that cannabis is a dangerous drug whose users should…

New Mexico enacted the first medical marijuana law in the nation on Feb. 21, 1978, thanks to the activism of one cancer patient named Lynn Pierson. Today — Feb. 21, 2018 — marks the 40th anniversary of the nation’s first medical marijuana law, and unfortunately, the story of its passage is too often forgotten. Jimmy…

Feb. 20–COLUMBUS, Ohio — Six unsuccessful applicants to grow medical marijuana in Ohio claim in a new lawsuit that state regulators failed to follow their own rules while scoring cultivator applications, made several scoring errors and hired scoring consultants who had blatant conflicts of interest. Several groups led by Jimmy Gould of CannAscend Ohio LLC…

The ballsy legal case of Washington v. Sessions has made national news. Five plaintiffs—including former NFL Player Marvin Washington, two children who use cannabis for life-threatening conditions, a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, and one other—are suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, among other federal agents, on the grounds that cannabis prohibition is unconstitutional. The judge…

An Ohio state auditor found that two state employees could have had the ability to manipulate applicant scores in Ohio’s competitive medical marijuana licensing process. Some of the fiercest competition for a piece of the marijuana market in the entire country has been in Ohio, and with good reason. There’s more potentially at stake in…

Early this week, pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma announced that it would stop marketing opioid painkillers to doctors. For years, Purdue has barraged the nation’s doctors offices with salespeople, armed with pamphlets containing misleading information about the dangers and addictive potential of their opioid medications. While Purdue makes other prescription drugs like fentanyl and codeine, the…

As more states join the legalization movement the fear that big tobacco will swoop in to take over the industry is looking less like a paranoid conspiracy and more like a matter of time. Joining the international green rush, tobacco companies have already begun to transition from their widely demonized product to something that is growing…

The French have always been known for possessing a certain national savoire faire. In English, that translates to a phrase meaning innate understanding of how to do things with a certain amount of panache, if not bonhomie. International diplomacy was long conducted in French as a result. However, when it comes to the famed French…